Welcome back to the Brilliant Book Club for Parents! Today, we’re reflecting on our reading of Avital Norman Nathman’s The Good Mother Myth. I’d love for you to join our discussion by participating in the comments, and by reading my fellow Book Club members’ posts here:
Deb, Urban Moo Cow: “His Perfect Mommy is Just a Myth”
Jessica, School of Smock: “Challenging the Good Mother Myth With Each Mom’s Story”
Lauren, Omnimom: “In Defense of the Good Mother Myth”
Stephanie, Mommy, For Real: “Dispelling Myths and Reinventing Motherhood”
Even if you didn’t read the book with us, I’d love to hear what the good mother myth means to you and how it impacts you.
*****
The Good Mother. The Perfect Mother. She haunts us all.
She has an impressive and satisfying career, but still has time to “join the PTA, run the school’s book fair, and attend every soccer game.” Her house is always clean. She serves organic and wholesome home-prepared meals, and her children eat their quinoa and kale and then sweetly ask for more. Her children never throw fits in Target, always sleep ten consecutive hours at night, and certainly never call her the meanest mommy EVER. “She is crafty, creative, and embodies the perfect blend of modern woman and hipster housewife.”*
But, alas, she does not exist.
It’s simply the “good mother myth.”
As a writer who reflects upon and often shares the less-than-desirable aspects of motherhood, I loved this book. The mothers who contributed their stories to this anthology reveal painful, honest, and authentic portraits of modern motherhood. And though the “perfect” mother does not exist, these women truly are good mothers: they think deeply and reflect profoundly on the meaning of motherhood, on both the macro level {society} and the micro level {their kitchen}.
Because the good mother is everywhere. Parenting magazines portray mothers who smile serenely at sleeping babies and know how to solve every childhood problem. I know this ad is going for a cute play on words, but seriously?
Stop it, advertisers. Just. stop.
Because ads like this perpetuate the most insidious component of the good mother myth: we love it ALL THE TIME!
Many of the essays in The Good Mother Myth address this. It’s the aspect of motherhood that currently fascinates me: ambivalence. Because if there is one thing the good mother is not, it’s ambivalent. She always wanted children. There was never a doubt in her mind that she would one day have children. She envisioned their names and faces, long before she even knew the name of her partner. And now she’s a mother! So she loves. every. minute. of. it.
In the novel Reconstructing Amelia, a single working mother, Kate, processes her tangled emotions upon the death of her only daughter, including her guilt over her career and not seeing the pain her child had been in. An encounter with “perfect” stay-at-home mother and neighbor Kelsey prompts this reflection:
“Kelsey’s idealized image of motherhood had always made Kate feel inadequate. Not because of anything Kelsey did, but because of how unconflicted she seemed. She wanted to be a full-time mother, and so she was. There was no push and pull, no wobbly balancing act in which someone was forever the loser – [daughter, mother,] job.” {emphasis added}
I think all mothers – whether we work outside the home or not – feel conflicted and wobbly. But there’s no room for this in the good mother myth. Her execution is flawless and confident. A perfect 10. {And, if you follow the gymnastics world, you know the “perfect 10” doesn’t even exist anymore! There’s no limit to the scoring! Push harder, leap higher, dare greater, there’s always more you can do!} No wonder we’re exhausted. No wonder we lose our balance.
The perfect mother doesn’t vacillate. She loves her children. She never complains about them. In fact, we really don’t like it when she complains. Have you read the comments online in posts where a mother dares to share her distaste for an unsavory component of motherhood? Watch out!
Ambivalence in motherhood can manifest itself in many ways. For a lot of women, it’s about the decision to become a mother in the first place. For many years, I insisted I would never have children. I must have sounded so arrogant to my friends and colleagues with children: “There’s just so much I want to accomplish in my life!” I confidently asserted that I had no maternal desire. “I’m not patient enough,” I’d say. I even remember confiding, “I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”
Well, fast-forward a decade and I am a mother {and not by accident – I have the temperature charts to prove it!} I am a good mother. Not perfect, but good enough. I love my children dearly and fiercely. But I sometimes feel conflicted. I don’t always get the time to myself that I crave. I wonder if I am “accomplishing” enough. I feel torn between the demands of my children, my students, my spouse, my dog, my desires, my community, and my spirit.
So when well-meaning friends and colleagues say, “Remember when you said you’d never have kids?”, it hits me hard. It brings up all those uncomfortable feelings of ambivalence. In the depths of my postpartum depression, when I longed for my pre-baby life, that comment made me doubt myself as a mother. Do they see how inadequate I am? Did I make the wrong decision?
If you’ve said this to me, I get it. You’re just making conversation. I know I was pretty adamant about the no-kid life I would lead. Intellectually, I know you’re not judging me or questioning my parenting abilities.
But deep in my heart and my gut, that perfect, unconflicted mother haunts me.
I think she haunts us all. And the only way we’ll exorcise her is to share these stories of our perfectly imperfect, unequivocally ambivalent mothering. As Avital Norman Nathman writes, we need to “share the realities of our lives and deconstruct this myth, which for too long has been hijacking the hearts, minds, and attention of women…”
A gymnast may perform her routine flawlessly. But I bet she also falls off the balance beam. A LOT. I bet she cries in pain and questions why she ever chose this olympian pursuit in the first place.
I also bet she still loves it.
Just not every minute.
*****
*{Quotes from the The Good Mother Myth, p. xiii}.
*****
Our February selection is Back to Normal: Why Ordinary Childhood Behavior Is Mistaken for ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
From the Amazon.com description: “In recent years there has been an alarming rise in the number of American children and youth assigned a mental health diagnosis. Current data from the Centers for Disease Control reveal a 41 percent increase in rates of ADHD diagnoses over the past decade and a forty-fold spike in bipolar disorder diagnoses. Similarly, diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder, once considered, has increased by 78 percent since 2002.
Dr. Enrico Gnaulati, a clinical psychologist specializing in childhood and adolescent therapy and assessment, has witnessed firsthand the push to diagnose these disorders in youngsters. Drawing both on his own clinical experience and on cutting-edge research, with Back to Normal he has written the definitive account of why our kids are being dramatically overdiagnosed—and how parents and professionals can distinguish between true psychiatric disorders and normal childhood reactions to stressful life situations.”
We’ll be posting and discussing the book on Monday, February 24th.
- A Mindful Approach to New Year’s Resolutions - January 13, 2020
- Just This Next Step - December 16, 2019
- WAIT: A Mindfulness Practice for Waiting in Line - December 9, 2019
